1. Introduction
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S. affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Since its founding in 1881 by visionary leader Clara Barton, the American Red Cross has been the nation’s premier emergency response organization. As part of a worldwide movement that offers neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war, the American Red Cross distinguishes itself by also aiding victims of devastating natural disasters. Over the years, the organization has expanded its services, always with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering. When Marsha Johnson Evans was named president and CEO of the American Red Cross on June 27, 2002, she had to take the responsibility for changing the damaged image of American Red Cross caused by the recent problems such as strike, lawsuits, an exposé on the 60 Minutes show, and so forth. Evans also must deal with the fast-changing technology environment and keep seeking the strategic alliances which will be beneficial to American Red Cross. Like any other organization, American Red Cross is facing many pressures and pulls in the resources and for the organization that is responding to countless number of disasters there is a need for a high level of revenue income. In order to achieve the best understanding of an organization, environment, and future strategies we have to examine the SWOT analysis
The Business plan on External/Internal Factors Of The Red Cross
... makes the American Red Cross more understanding toward those diverse people in need. The American Red Cross is an outstanding example a successfully diverse organization. The American Red Cross is ... Charter and Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement. The Red Cross provides relief to victims of disaster and helps communities prevent, prepare for, ...
The objective of this case analysis is to weigh and analyze the current state of American Red Cross and provide a recommended strategy that will guide the future of the American Red Cross.
2. SWOT Analysis-American Red Cross
SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing an American Red Cross organization and its environment. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Opportunities and threats are external factors
2-1. Strengths
* Long history and still strong people-friendly brand power (image)
* American Red Cross has very strong brand power compared to the other competitors. Most American citizens think of Red Cross symbols or Red Cross companies as a good image when they donate blood as well as any money or other thing of value such as canned goods, blankets, medicines, and clothing
* Huge Domestic network as well as Global Network
* It has a much larger network for relief services compared to its competitors.
* A number of strategic alliances
* Coinstar, Inc, Hospitals
* WHO, WHF
* Wide range of services
* Armed Forces Emergency Services, Biomedical Services
* Disaster Services, Health and Safety Services
* International Services, Nursing, Youth Involvement
* Access to timely information
* With the support of strategic alliances, American Red Cross has access to timely information
2-2. Weaknesses
* Unfocused Target Markets
* Damaged image
* Lawsuits, 9/11 relief operation and so forth damaged American Red Cross’ reputation
* A barrage of negative publicity
* CBS news pour out the onslaught to American Red Cross
* Limitations caused by volunteer workers who might be less motivated to get donations than paid workers
* Communications difficult because of the great number of chapters or branches
The Essay on Clara Barton Cross Red Wounded
Clara Barton Founder of the American Red Cross By: Susan Sloat e 1. Timeline: See attached 2. The event from the timeline that I believe changed Clara Barton s life would be in 1833, when Clara s brother, David, fell of the roof while he and some friends were constructing a barn. Since he was very ill and Clara was not the type of person to sit back and watch, we volunteered to nurse him back to ...
2-3. Opportunities
* Expand Online Operations
* Smartphone Operations (Twitter, Facebook and so on)
* Using social network such as Twitter and Facebook, it will be effective and efficient for raising the funds and its operations.
* Enhance donors’ motivation to contribute funds by using expanded advertising and public relations efforts along with more strategic alliances and better developed relationships with those strategic alliance partners
* Image enhancement and encouragement of donations by providing logo emblazoned products to donors
2-4. Threats
* No guaranteed or stable income sources SOLICIT “PLEDGE” DONATIONS TO SECURE STEADY CASH FLOW
* Competitors in the plasma market MAKE MORE EXTENSIVE DONATION CENTER NETWORK
* Bad publicity brought about by potential mistakes in the provision of supplies and services to disaster victims Better logistics to insure proper allocation of resources
* Bad publicity brought about by imprecise accounting procedures which allow earmarked donation to be expended for purposes other than as intended by the donors
Better Accounting procedures which insure that earmarked donations are applied only to the donors’ requested uses
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Since late 2009, users can follow lists of authors instead of following individual authors.[3][4] All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.
Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide. It is sometimes described as “SMS of the Internet.”[5] The use of Twitter’s application programming interface for sending and receiving text messages by other applications often eclipses direct use of Twitter.
The Research paper on Flower Of Service
Generally, financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry either public or private finance industry. Financial services defined as services that related to facilities such as saving accounts, checking accounts, leasing, loans and money transfer provided by banks, credit unions and finance companies.1 Flower of service is a visual framework for understanding the supplementary ...
What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it’s not a social network, but it’s an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world.
—Evan Williams [6]
Image Management
The credibility of the organization plummeted through false claims and rumors spread by the media. Repairing the image has been a struggling experience that needs minor adjustment if the organization plans to overcome these obstacles and become a prosperous functional establishment. The American Red Cross has to find a way to fix issues such as faith in the organization, loss of affiliations with other well established organizations, massive strikes brought on by its employees, and lawsuits. American Red Cross seems to be focused more on good press than good results. The image repair has to start repairing their image by focusing on finding the best way to immediately respond to any disaster that can happen at any time. American Red Cross should center their attention on people that are affected by disasters and people and organizations that can help Red Cross in terms of donating and funding. Media reports should be the last concern on the list.
